


In Bliss There is Rot

by madwanderer



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-19
Updated: 2013-11-19
Packaged: 2018-01-02 01:03:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1050659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madwanderer/pseuds/madwanderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>| Alice's mind has always been a mental torture for them both. Her livelihood was never what she pretended it was; and beneath a whimsical ignorance there laid a pain unknown to so many. |</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Bliss There is Rot

" _Hatter, it hurts_!" 

She'd been wailing for for a good few minutes now; scrabbling for purchase against his coat-- tucked and buried deep against his chest, one arm pinned between her body and his own; the other clutching, clawing, grasping-- doing anything she could; to find something to anchor herself with, instinctively grabbing for help.

"I kno--" He'd barely spoken when she wailed again, his voice just more noise to her head--she let out a pained scream, grasping so tightly to his coat that her nail broke and split off entirely. She barely even noticed, though, for her mind was so abuzz with the conflict ions and discussions of everything in the room around her that she couldn't _think_.  
  
Everything _hurt_.   
  
Her shoes were shouting at her. Her dress was grumbling; the ribbon in her hair was shrieking about being knotted,  the wall Jefferson was leaning on was laughing airily with the chair in the corner; somewhere a teacup was singing, a plush bear was muttering nonsense and a doily was heatedly discussing the economy with the salt shaker. The bed from upstairs was moaning about how it'd begun to sag, a portrait in the hallway was yipping about how dreadfully tattered it was getting; And more objects were picking up their insistent chatting by the minute; the noises proving needles in her fragile mind, and each new voice was another prick-- another burst of searing pain.  
  
There was so much noise, they were all so loud, so troubled and dizzying and painful and absolutely _maddening_ \-- she couldn't bear it.  
  
She shrieked-- if only to release the pain; to let the pressure out of her mind, as it felt like a million things were weighing upon her at once; coupled with the sharp jabs of the voices chittering around her; the tones and pitches all varying, shrieking to whispering and she couldn't focus-- couldn't concentrate on a single one, and she was reeling in her thoughts, in the stories and voices that threatened to over take her.  
  
Sobbing, she had curled into him again-- he'd long since sat down, let her grasp and claw and withdraw into him as she needed to. This wasn't the first of her episodes; when she was distant, when she didn't focus, she gave too many things 'voices', her imagination far too restless, and somedays... somedays, it simply wouldn't shut up.  
  
Some days, she was writhing and gasping and shrieking like she was being attacked; her hands flying from her ears to his coat; to her temples to her mouth to bite down on her fingers (Until, of course, he'd tug her hand away-- taking hold of it, feeling her squeeze so hard he would wince with the pressure, but never let go.  
  
Her screams were haunting; her eyes were pained, distant, _wild_. At times, startlingly sharp-- clear, frenzied, staring at him between her pleas for him to make it stop, and sometimes unfocused, her speech nothing more than jibberish, noises tumbling over her lips for the sheer sake of it.  
  
She would weep, and he would hold her; would stroke her back, would take her hands if she started to become self destructive-- would cover her in his coat as she needed, or would take her to their meadow, in the forest.  
  
For sometimes she begged to go there, as she hadn't yet that day given the flowers a voice, and everything would be so _quiet_.  
  
But other days, she wouldn't ask him-- for she'd been there already, and if she were to stand in the meadow, she herself feared she may have blood pouring out her ears at the sheer sound of all the daisies speaking.  
  
It was loud. It was loud and she was squirming against him again; not leaving, but trying hard to rid her mind of these voices-- the pricking pain, that horrid throb of a migraine; her frustration evident in the way she clenched at him and kicked her feet uselessly at the stone floor they both sat upon.  
  
" _It hurts, it hurts, it hurts, make it st-- hurts! Hatter, please, gods, please, hurts-- stop, stop, stop! Everyone stop! Please-- stop, it hu-- I can't listen, I can't hear a thing, I hear everything and it hurts, please, stop! Make it stop!_ "  
  
Her face was twisted and quite honestly ugly as she cried; her face hidden as much as she could in the leather of his coat, biting down on her lip so hard after she finished her wailing that the metallic taste of blood greeted her-- and that only earned another screech, another sob that wracked her whole frame.  
  
She was _sick_. Her mind had long since snapped from all the characters she herself had invented; crumbled beneath the weight of all these voices, and perhaps, she thought, this was its punishment to her.  
  
The searing pain she would feel-- the way she'd lose entire control of herself, thrashing about like an animal, gasping and shuddering and entirely out of control.   
  
And worst of all, the looks he'd gave her when she finished, when her wailing turned to weeping; and her weeping turned to naught more than little tremors as he finally allowed her to cover her ears, whispering nonsense to herself in some effort to let all the voices out, to beg them to leave.  
  
At some point, she knew, her nonsense would begin to stutter-- she would slur, and her trembling would stop. It was then that he'd hold her more comfortably against himself; and her head would loll to the side, and her breathing wold be shaky-- but she did not want to move, because moving would require thinking. And thinking would be setting the ruins of her mind alight; a new wave of pain, one she always feared she may not survive entirely. That these voices, one day, would drown out her every thought-- and would buzz and shake much in the same way that bees did, and in time the heat and friction would be so much that her mind would simply melt. And _then_ , where would she be?  
  
So she wouldn't think.  
  
So she would drape herself over her Hatter; as she had since the beginning, she would trust that he would take care of her-- rely on him, it could be said, to cradle her head like a babe's-- to hold her up, to wipe the tears and spittle from her face with the sleeve of his coat. She would trust him to wait for her to fall asleep before he moved her; before he'd put her to bed and lay beside her, and tuck her head into her chest as he always did-- so, just in case she did happen to wake, to open her eyes, she would see nothing. And if she saw nothing, if she duly believed upon waking that simply nothing existed, then nothing would speak-- and she could remain peaceful throughout the night, rather than shouting herself raw upon the realization that her pillow had begun to whisper to her again.   
  
And so he would do all of this willingly; not a thought for himself as he cradled her; as he gave her his entire attention; his mind, his every thought, as insanity was not an easy thing to watch over.  
  
He would hold that broken doll; that bursting ray of sunshine that had quite literally fallen into his life; he would hold her and mend her in these times of need just as she did for him with every word she spoke, every touch she gave and kiss she offered-- he would try to repay her, would try to repay the salvation he offered-- would help her fight the cruelties and tribulations her mind brought upon her, the injustice of the world she once lived in now ruining such innocence in her. 

And for hours he might have to sit like this; as endured her shrieking with his own headache, as he soothed and hushed her (And barely speaking, only if he slipped, but he had learnt long ago that adding his own voice to the mix only made her wail louder,) and let her take hold of him as she needed, did whatever she asked of him.

But he could not save her from herself-- and he could only hope that, in time, these episodes would grow less frequent-- and his beautiful Alice would no longer have to bear this pain; a pain not meant for someone such as she, so kind and jovial and innocent, not deserving or even prepared for something of this magnitude-- something, though he had implored, even the imp couldn't have healed.

_For if it were naught but her thoughts, than how was anyone to fight it, let alone Alice herself?_


End file.
